We're Jon and Gav and we've been researching Daleks together since 2005 in a quest to explain when each prop was built, by whom, and what happened to each of them.

Jon started the whole thing in 2002 but Gav came along later with a shared interest to help revamp the whole site. It's not the first attempt at a prop history and much ground work was laid down in articles by Tonk Clark and Stephen James Walker in the 1980s, and by Mark Dando and Dave Muirhead in the 1990s. But often the production team contradicted each other and resources in those days were limited. With episodes now clearer than ever on DVD, and so many photos available, we decided the only way to tell the whole story was to start from scratch and work through every piece of visual evidence from the start.

After two years of exhaustive investigation, a new site was launched in 2007. But over time, new fragments of information came to light and some cracks seemed to appear in the reasoning behind certain conclusions we'd reached. As the niggles accumulated, it became obvious that it was time once again to revamp the site.

Following some helpful insight from researcher Simon Ayers, seven months of painstaking analysis resulted in a huge relaunch in the summer of 2010. A new timeline was finally created in which each prop could be followed from its construction until its last appearance on screen - and in many cases beyond.

We continue to delve deeper into the stories of these props and many new pages are currently under construction. Our research time is often limited due to our jobs but we hope to put new pages live as soon as we can! (If you go on Facebook here and click LIKE, you'll get all the news).

We have enjoyed everything that has gone into this site and we hope you enjoy reading it. We love getting comments and we're excited to hear anecdotes about Daleks. If you have any private photos of TV props then please get in touch because they could solve the mysteries which still remain.

Acknowledgements

We'd like to express our sincere thanks to all the people who've shared photos and snippets of info down the years which have made our research possible.

Who Are We? Jon has been a Doctor Who fan since the early 1970s and has a preference for Tom Baker stories but likes all eras of the show. He has his own Dalek and manages a family run TV Shop in Bath which has been established since 1946. He is a keen darts player and organises the local league, as well as being a fan of Pink Floyd and supporter of Liverpool FC. He has also supplied research for Doctor Who Magazine and Doctor Who Figurines Collection. Follow him on Twitter.

Gav was first introduced to Doctor Who during the summer of 1987 via his dad's video collection of the 1983 repeats. He built his first Doctor Who website in 1997 and started themindrobber.co.uk in 2003. He contributes artwork to various Doctor Who products including the Classic and New Series DVD ranges, and has supplied various features, cover artwork and illustrations for books, Doctor Who Magazine, Doctor Who Adventures and Doctor Who Figurines Collection. Follow him on Twitter.

Latest News

2nd March 2014

Terry Nation's Daleks!

After our exhaustive research on the two Dalek movies we have been able to more accurately tell the history of Terry Nation's own Dalek force. Read all about it here.

30th January 2015

An Original Dalek Investigation

We have done an in-depth analysis of an original Dalek prop, which we were able to photograph nearly ten years ago. The page shows how the Dalek's unique lumps and bumps could be used to confirm its use throughout the first decade of Doctor Who. Read the analysis of this original Shawcraft Dalek skirt here.

3rd October 2014

Shepperton Investigations

In a slight change of research, Jon has been working hard on telling the story of the locations for Daleks: Invasion Earth 2150AD. You'll be amazed to see how this production was put together and where some bits were filmed. Read the new page here.

4th July 2014

New 'Exhibition' Daleks page

We are pleased to announce our new 'Exhibition' Daleks page is now live! With Gav busy producing wonderful work for official Doctor Who publications, Jon has filled his time researching and writing this fascinating history of the cousins of the TV props. Have a read here!

28th March 2014

Exciting New Remembrance Information

We've been extremely lucky lately in being given hand-written FX notes from the production of Remembrance of the Daleks and it has given a fascinating insight into the production process.

Jon has been working tirelessly on an update to the Remembrance section and the contemporary documents Gav has found threw up some interesting questions which have now been resolved. The page is now online and ready to read!

5th March 2014

"Life and Times of
a Dalek" feature in Doctor Who Magazine.

We are ridiculously excited to announce our four-page feature in issue 471 of Doctor Who Magazine. Written up by Gav and researched with Jon over many years, it gives a simplified account of the life-story of one particular Dalek. There are a couple of Daleks whose tales would have been quite interesting to tell but the fact this one has a happy ending made it the obvious choice.

We're immensely grateful to Tom Spilsbury and the lovely chaps at DWM for buying into the idea and we're thrilled to hve the chance to show a wider audience our rather niche passtime!